Attention processes in chronic fatigue syndrome: Attentional bias for health-related threat and the role of attentional control

Attentional control moderates the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and attentional disengagement from threatening information

“…These findings are consistent with prior studies that did not find evidence of an association between social anxiety and attentional biases for threat (Gotlib et al, 2004; Ononaiye et al, 2007; Pineles & Mineka, 2005). Consistent with our prediction and prior studies (Bardeen & Orcutt, 2011; Derryberry & Reed, 2002; Hou et al, 2014; Reinholdt-Dunne et al, 2009; Schoorl et al, 2014), however, AC moderated the social anxiety-attentional bias relationship. Individual differences in the shifting (but not focusing) subscale of the ACS were associated with differential patterns of attentional disengagement for threat cues at high levels of social anxiety.…”

“…For example, Bardeen and Orcutt (2011) found that self-reported AC moderated the relationship between attentional bias for threat and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) such that individuals with low AC and high PTSS were more likely to attend to threat relative to neutral stimuli at a shorter (i.e., 150 ms) stimulus presentation durations. Similarly, other studies have also shown AC as a moderator of the relationship between anxiety and attentional bias for threat-related stimuli (Hou et al, 2014; Schoorl, Putman, Van Der Werff, & Van Der Does, 2014). These findings converge with a growing literature across numerous paradigms and measures suggesting that AC plays a role in the relationship between anxiety and the processing of emotional information (Reinholdt-Dunne, Mogg, & Bradley, 2009).…”

“…The main finding was that individual variability in the self-rated capacity to flexibly shift attentional allocation moderated the association between social anxiety and attentional disengagement from, but not engagement with, social threat stimuli. This study adds to a growing literature underscoring the importance of AC processes in understanding the nature of anxiety-related attentional mechanisms (Bardeen & Orcutt, 2011; Derryberry & Reed, 2002; Hou et al, 2014; Reinholdt-Dunne et al, 2009; Schoorl et al, 2014). The current findings extend the extant literature, however, by pointing to the potential value of investigating subcomponents of both AC and attentional bias mechanisms in anxiety.…”

The role of cognitive bias in relation to persistent distress among women diagnosed with breast cancer

“…Positive bias index indicates an attentional tendency toward the target stimulus, whereas a negative bias index indicates an attentional tendency away from the target stimulus. Reaction time data with errors and outliers of <200 milliseconds or >3000 milliseconds or those more than 3 standard deviation above each participant's mean reaction time were excluded from trials …”

Attentional bias and metacognitions in cancer survivors with high fear of cancer recurrence

“…Individual reaction times on the dot probe <200 and >2000 ms were considered outliers and were replaced by the mean score of the participants' other responses. Indices of attentional bias were calculated for each word set, using the following formula, where t = target word, p = probe location and l = lower location: Index = ((tupl − tlpl) + (tlpu − tupu)) / 2.…”